Well I never thought I would be saying this, and yes I truly mean it when I say it, but it is actually very cold here.   I know, I know I have complained many a times in my blogs about how hot it is and how I cannot wait for winter, but comparing from the mild winter we had last year until now, it is as Larry David would put it…"pretty pretty cold".   Today it is about 4 degrees Celsius and it is amazing to see the people's reactions to these extreme climate differences.  Nobody in my community wants to leave their houses let alone their beds.   In Southern Paraguay they closed down some of the roads because ice formed on them.  Anyone who went to college with me knows how much I hate the cold, so it has been hard for me to bring a motivating Peace Corps attitude to the situation.

Nevertheless, the work had to go on in my community and I did more construction this past week than I could ever imagine.   My men and I have continued working on the computer center.  We have finished plastering all the walls (inside and outside), I laid the tile floor, we painted the inside a bright yellow with salmon color trimming, and we are starting to put the door frames in.   Talk about work, I never thought how hard it is to build a large house with such limited resources, but it is amazing how creative my guys are with their limited use materials.   I believe we will have the construction completely done by the end of this month, and I plan on buying the computers at the beginning of July, but the one thing I have learned since being down here is that things usually do not go as planned so be ready for the unexpected.

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of inviting two people from my community to partake in a Peace Corps training session held at a large retreat center.   The objective of the four day meeting was to help local Paraguayans design and manage Community Projects.  All the people that I did my PC training with brought people from their communities and we all shared our project ideas and how we would accomplish our goals.   My group's project, the computer center, was farther than most other projects because we had started planning for it many months ago.  In fact, most PC volunteers came to this meeting without a project in mind, and still had not formed any groups in their community.   It made me think, what the hell are these people doing all day?  Both my contacts that came with me were teachers in the local high school, and I see them as being future leaders of my community.   They both thought the week long meetings were very informative and each made many contacts with other Paraguayans.  The thing that all the contacts liked most about this retreat was the late night drinking with the PC volunteers.   If you want to see a 100% cultural exchange, it would have to be 14 Americans teaching about 20 Paraguayans how to play drinking games, especially men drinking with women (a common taboo you never see in Paraguay).  Boy o' boy, did these Paraguayans have a good time, and it really brought the whole group together.

Well three days ago I completed the one year mark in Paraguay, yes it is still hard to imagine.  I can still remember finishing up at Boulder during the spring and thinking about the adventure that would lie ahead of me.  It has definitely been an adventure, and I would be lying if I did not say it has had its ups and downs.   The year flew by faster than any that I have experienced, and sitting back and reflecting on the things that I have done, I feel as though I can say that I have lived.   Their has not been a moment of regret or doubt since being in Paraguay, and I hope this next year brings along more new and exciting journey's. 

Please keep sending me emails about what is happening back in the States.  I have attached at the bottom of this letter the newspaper article that was in the papers here. The article did not scan onto MySpace, but the translation of the article is at the bottom of this blog.  The translation is not exact, but almost perfect.  Talk to you soon.

Brad

                             Will to Serve

When they just arrived in Paraguay, Jennifer Spencer and Bradley Lazard, they were "The North Americans". They live in the locality of Nueva Italia (Central – department in Paraguay). They are neighbors of Isla Ybate (Paraguari - department in Paraguay) – where Brad did his training).

From the beginning – as it happens to all volunteers in the Peace Corps – it was their job to clarify to all that would ask them the question, that they were not spies of the U.S. government. They explained many times that they came to Paraguay to learn about a new culture, to formulate cultural exchange, and to help the inhabitants to carry out their projects.

Time and time again, the Paraguayans were told U.S. history in Spanish but they badly understood it because most people understand much better in Guarani. Today, in commemoration of the 40^th Anniversary of the arrival of the first volunteers from the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), the volunteers all say if they had to do it over again, they would join the Peace Corps. With their native (American) accents, but with a richer vocabulary, they are trying to speak Guarani.

He is "Blas"

My name is Bradley, but when I arrived here I realized the pronunciation of my name is difficult for some of the people, so I decided to nickname myself "Blas"

("Blas" is the Patron Saint of Paraguay).

From the first day in Paraguay, Blas – who has a degree from the University in Business Administration with an emphasis on International Finance – does not rest. He arrived in this community to work with a group of agricultural producers. "For the first three months I spent getting to know my community. Now I have my own group, made up of 14 men, they are named "Committee of Producers of Isla Ybate", he says energetically after washing his hands and stopping work on the construction of his house that he is building with his companions.

"It is for a computer school that is necessary to have because many young people here must travel to other places to study.  And since there are four teachers in the group, I am teaching them, so they can later teach the children," he says.

The group devised the project and the members meet once a week for two hours to discuss business, pointed out Blas.

Each one of the men in the group is pleased by the initiative of the young man who is a native of Phoenix, Arizona.  He pays them in the same currency. (He pays them the same compliment.) I wanted a different experience, not to be in a city or sit in an office.  And the truth is I cannot complain, the life is good here, the people are very kind and there is always "fried mandioca" (fried yucca).

Sectors of Work

By definition, the Peace Corps "is an international agency of the government of the United States it promotes sustainable development and understanding of peace". The originated in 1961during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. 

It is present in Latin America, Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Pacific Rim.  In Paraguay, it has developed its activities since 1967.

The volunteers, - American citizens betweens the ages of 21-80 years old -, that are chosen to comprise the organization, carry out work in the sectors of agriculture, environment, health, education, and economics. In Paraguay there have been up to this date, 3000 volunteers.

They participate in a program of training for three months where they learn Spanish and Guarani.

During all of their stay, that lasts two years, they live in conditions that are similar to those of the people in their community.

A ceremony that is motivated by the 40^th Anniversary of the organization will be carried out on August 17^th at the Theater at the Central Bank of Paraguay.

Hola a Todos!!!

Well with all the rain and bad weather that we have had, I have had a lot of time to rest and reflect on the last blog that I wrote.  Things in Paraguay are not that bad, actually they are quite good, even turning to be excellent.  I really love the hard work that the community and I have been doing together and we actually received some national recognition.   As I said in the last blog, the Director of Peace Corps Paraguay came and visited my site two weeks ago.  He really liked what everyone in my community was doing and loved how we have been following all the Peace Corps small business processes to implement projects.   Last week he nominated five volunteers out of the almost 180 people in country to do a special interview with the national paper on how a volunteer lives at site, and in my case, how the computer project is panning out within my community.   I found this to be a great honor and tangible proof that hard work does get recognized.  The newspaper that came out and interviewed me and the community's name is "Ultima Hora" (you can Google them on the web).   The people in my town were almost in shock that the big national newspaper was coming to our town to talk with them about their relationship with me.   Everyone who wanted the chance to speak was interviewed and the photographer must have taken 500 photos.  The newspaper article has come out today  and I think the writer did a good job.  The article has a huge photo of me with a couple men from my community and there is a page and half article about my life and, another PC volunteer who lives near me.   Since the newspaper has come to my site, both my groups have been determined to work harder.  My women's group, which was on the brink of breaking up because of not paying their loans on time, has gotten itself back on track; and my men's group has shown a thirst of business knowledge, that it is almost hard for me to keep up with them.   I have been teaching business classes to all who want to participate in my site, and I find it challenging to keep up with the community's demands of new concepts.   I keep telling them to milk me like a cow, and drain all the resources they can out of me while I am here for the two years, and it is nice to see that they are now taking full advantage.   We have had a couple set backs on the construction part of the computer school.  There never is any money, and what ever money we generate, always goes in to buying materials.   Also with the massive amounts of rain, the men who have been working with me on the center, now need to fix their fields because the flooding has started to wash away some of their crops.   So I guess you can say, the project is a little over budget and taking longer than I thought (g-d how I wish for a Home Depot!!!). 

As for things in Asuncion, I love being able to hang out with Tamar and her family.  She makes me so happy and I do not know if I could make it through this experience without her (it feels so good to vent to someone in your own language).   Well, I miss you all and like I said please continue to send me emails, they mean a lot to me to know what is going on up north.

Best,

Brad

Hello All,

Let me start this entry by saying life at site the past couple of days has been extremely depressing.   I guess I should say that for the past couple of months I have been riding on this high of everything working out just fine and life being all peaches and cream and then once again reality set in and this time it was a lot closer to home.  

Last weekend I was in Asuncion for a brief meeting with my boss about how things were going at my site and my relationship with my community.   The meeting went well and I told him how everyone was real excited about the computer project and that we are almost done building the computer center.   I told him the only problem was after he came out to visit (April 15^th) I have not been able to hold another meeting, due to large amounts of rain at my site and no one in Paraguay works when there is rain (which is about 300 days a year).   He told me to chill out and that I was lucky that my group meets once a week, most volunteers only meet with their groups once a month or every three months (I was thinking what the hell do they do with the rest of their time???).   When our meeting ended I was excited that I had all Saturday to be with Tamar in the city and I would head back very early Sunday morning to have my meeting which we had not had for two weeks.   Saturday was great, Tamar and I went out with some of her friends and got Mexican food (which the restaurant in Paraguay is not half bad…or my standards have dropped immensely).   Sunday morning I woke up at 6:00 am to catch the 6:30 am bus.  When I finally arrived in site at 10:00 (the bus had a flat tire which took two hours to fix) the family who I have always eaten with and who I pretty much live with was not there.   Carmen's, (my cook and Dionicio's wife), sister had died of stomach cancer, and the family had gone to Asuncion for the funeral and 9 days of prayer.  I felt very bad for Carmen because this was the sister who had come out and spent New Years and the whole month of January in our site and she was only 35 years old.   Both women were very close with one another, and Carmen and Dionicio would usually watch the sister's daughter while she went to the hospital.

Loki, our neighbor, who both works and pretty much lives at Dionicio and Carmen's house told me the whole story and then followed up by saying did you buy me my birthday gift.   It has been one month since Loki's birthday and I still have not bought her the fan that I keep promising.  I told her that this Thursday I would promise to bring her the gift, and she promised she would cook for me as long as I bought food for her family.   I am not sure if I have explained Loki to you all yet, but she is a single mother with two kids from two different fathers, who lives in a dilapidated house across the street from me on Dionicio's property.   Her family stopped recognizing her when she was 12 years old and she was kicked out of her house.  Since my stay in Isla Ybate, I believe I have grown to have the strongest bond with her and her kids Lorena (9) and Adolfo (2) (I have many pictures of them on www.kodakgallery.com).  As Sunday continued on, three people came to my meeting and the rest didn't come because there is the Paraguayan holiday of Labor Day on Tuesday ( Dia de Trabajadores - May 1st or May Day).  Yes, I know what you may be thinking, it is Sunday and the holiday is on Tuesday, and no one leaves for vacation…why did they not come?   Well the reasons I got on Monday as I went from house to house was "well the holiday is about resting from work, and the community has just decided to take the whole week off, so no one will work Sunday to Sunday."   I wanted to sit and argue with these people about the meaning of the word day or dia, but I knew this fight would go nowhere.   To make matters worse, Loki's cousin Francisco showed up Sunday night drunk as a skunk and drugged up on g-d knows what from Argentina.  Francisco came in town because Dionicio and him had made a contract over Christmas break about Francisco selling his house (Loki's house) to Dionicio in exchange for money.   We explained that Dionicio would not be back in town until next Tuesday because of the funeral, but he was too drugged up to know the difference.  He is the first person that I know from my community that people are scared of because of his relations with drugs, so I knew I had to stay away from him while he is here, but the only problem is I had promised Loki I would buy food for her family and now I would have to buy it for this drug addict.  

As Monday and Tuesday went by there were many celebrations with soccer tournaments during the day and dance parties at night (a bunch of old drunk Paraguayan men sitting together, while maybe one or two girls dance…Paraguayans just don't know how to party).   The tournaments were great because I could buy food for Loki and her family and give it to them there while not having to see her cousin, and at night he would be at the dances, so I could buy them food and bring it to their house.   Tuesday night at dinner, I experienced something so sad, I am not sure my words have justification.  Lorena, Loki's older daughter asked me "Why do I have to be so poor?"   Mind you this is a nine year old girl, who has never known her father, has eaten all her meals at other people's houses because her mother only works for food, she sleeps in the same bed with her mom and brother in a one room house that has no bathroom or latrine outside, she only has three pairs of clothes, and when she is not at school or watching her brother as her mom works Lorena will then work about 6 hours a day making enkaje yu (our women's string art).  I tried explaining to Lorena that she is not poor and that she has a great life because she has so many friends, a mother that loves her, a school to study at, and food to eat for every meal.   But as I was saying this I saw her brother sitting on her lap while she was holding her needle and string, her mom cooking dinner in the front yard of their house using wood sticks as the grill, and the drug addicted cousin was only about 100 meters away using what is left of the family's money on beer.   This experience literally made me sick, and I realized without the community's help (especially Dionicio and Carmen) this family would not survive.

Well where do we go from here, today is Wednesday and my meeting is at 5.  I do not know if anyone will come, judging from the noise coming from the local soccer field the games are continuing so the beer must be flowing, which probably means no meeting.   I cannot fault the people for celebrating, when they do work they work very hard, the only problem is which I have learned here is that there is smart work and hard work and I think my people always chose to do the hard work.   I am sick of listening to people say they have no money as they buy another beer or pack of cigarettes.  Also, I am sick of seeing only men celebrating these holidays while the women stay at home.   Lets be honest, after drinking 10 or 12 beers the last thing that I want to do is sit with a group of men and TALK about girls, for g-ds sake why don't they a least invite the women to drink with them.  Well in closing, I am still a happy person, I still really like my job and the people I live with, and yes I am still madly in love with my novia, Tamar, in Asuncion, but it is just ignorant things that give mankind a bad name (alcoholism, poverty, male chauvinism) that really piss me off.   Keep sending the emails I love reading them!!!! 

Follow Up: It is now Thursday, the rain came Wednesday afternoon and there was no meeting.   Michael, the Country Director of Peace Corps Paraguay, did a surprise visit to my site today and actually everything went great.  We visited people in my town and I showed him what we have built for the computer center.   He told me that when everything is ready, he will come out with other people from the Peace Corps office and invite the U.S. Ambassador and his staff for the inauguration of the computer lab.   Also, tonight we will once again and try and have my meeting….what can I say hopefully this bad week will turn out to be good after all!!!   

 P.S. my new Kodakgallery.com passwrod is: xtreme   

Amor y Besos, Brad  

Family, friends, and to all who are snooping around on Myspace.com!!!

Where to begin this entry?  I think it has been almost three weeks since I last wrote you all.   The good news is that I am still living, but the bad news I am rapidly approaching the day when I will have a head of hair (or lack there of) like all the other men in my family.  It is small jokes like these that I have to say to myself to keep some form of sanity. 

The end of January was one of those months that seemed to never end.  Upon arriving back to my site, I had to once again deal with the torrential rain.   I have learned to accept and even like the rain in Paraguay because it is an excuse for everyone (including me) to take the day off and sit in my house and read.   Like all the other times, the wind was strong enough to knock down the power lines and we had to wait for the power company to come out and fix each column.  This time there was a little problem, and g-d willingly it had to happen in front of my house.   My neighbor/contact/letrado (Paraguayan for sneaky bastard) Alcidez, the man in charge of the power bills for the water tank, happened to be talking to me when the electrician from the power company informed us that he shut down the water tank because no one had paid the bills for the past 6 months (Gs 2,000,000 or $385).   That no one was Alcidez, and people in the community started to notice and question real quick when their was no water coming out of their spigots.   Many people came to confront him where the money had gone and he kept on saying that he had paid the bills.  Both the community and I new that he had used the money to pay for the materials to construct his new house and no one was going to see this money again.   I swear a hanging nearly took place in front of my house, and I didn't want to have any part in this debacle.  Needless to say, after three days enough people in the community were sick of not having water, that we were able collect enough money to pay the bill.   It is amazing to see how quickly people become dependent on these new comforts that they don't want to regress back to their old ways.  This community has only had running water for 7 years.   Furthermore, Alcidez is not in charge of the water anymore but no one has stepped up to take this responsibility, and I see this same problem reoccurring 6 months down the line.   When it comes to money, everyone here wants to have it, but no one wants to be responsible for how they use it, and g-d forbid they reinvest their personal money in the community.         

Bueno, that was the rain and water calamity…moving forward.  Business wise I have accomplished more in this month than I think I have in the 8 months (can you believe it) of being here.   As I have said before, I am currently teaching professors from the high school how to teach these computer classes every afternoon from 3-6.  I have 4 students who all have had computer experience and the only thing that they lack is practice.  We have been working on 5 different classes: Microsoft Windows, Typing Classes, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.   These will be the classes that we hope to teach if we can get the money from USAID. 

This is the other job I have been working a ton with my group on.   Every morning I have been waking up and going door to door with a representative from group and doing a feasibility study on who wants this project, and if they will come in support it.   We have collected almost 1000 signatures, and plan on having 2000 by the end of the February. In the afternoon, if we are not practicing computer skills, we are working on our solicitude to give to Peace Corps for the money that we need.   The way it works with PC to receive grant money is that 25% of the money that a project cost has to come from the community, while PC will donate the other 75%.   Also, there are other forms of getting money through foreign donations, but I am holding out on that request because I want to see if my group can do this all on their own with PC Paraguay.   If you would like to see a detailed plan of what we will be requesting please email me and I will forward all documents to you.  But a brief summary is that we would like to obtain: 5 computers; 1 Multi-function printer, scanner, and photocopier; 2 UPS electrical suppliers; air conditioner; materials for all machines; and enough money for transportation, advertising, and utilities.  We plan on teaching classes to third graders and older.   Classes will be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with downtime from 11 to 1.  We are asking for about $3,500, while the community is providing $1,500.   As I said before, anyone who wants to see a detailed description of this grant form email me and I will send you all facts.

My women's group is still continuing to be very good with their loan payments and they pretty much do not need any of my help.   I would like to work with them more on a regular basis, but most women live so far that it is hard to get everyone together.  Doing the research for my computer project gave me the opportunity to visit many women in my group and see where they all live.   There was a few women in this group who live in very remote campo areas where they have no neighbors.  It made me realize how these two hour meetings that we have for these women is the only two hours a week that they get to interact with society.   It is quit depressing to think that in the year 2007 women still are almost slave-bound to their houses.

Another big issue that is affecting Paraguay is an epidemic of Dengue.  So far there have been no signs found near my site, but the country is in quite a hysteria and that is the only thing they show on the news.   About 1000 people have died, and the only way to really stop it is by drying out wetlands.  I'll keep you all posted if it comes near me.

Well being back in Asuncion is nice.  Tonight I am meeting up with some friends to watch the Super Bowl.   I am sure it will not be like the Super Bowl parties that we had in Boulder (especially sophomore year), but I really don't care who wins because I got family in both cities.   Hope life is good for all back home and please continue to send the emails.

Best,

Brad    

P.S.  Ignore my last paragraph.  I watched the Super Bowl last night with my friends at Hooter's in Asuncion.  It opened Friday evening and it could not have been anymore fun.  We drank American beer, ate wings and nachos, and watched cute Paraguayan girls do cheers during the game.   Dad, I promise I'll take you there when you come in town.

Mbat'ikopio Che Amigokuera!!!

Long time no speak.  It has been about two weeks since I last blogged, and these two weeks have been the most American- like since I have been gone.   In this blog, I have no good stories about killing animals, working in the fields, or having to trek many miles to get to civilization.  Rather, I got some juicy stories about how 100 Peace Corps volunteers celebrate Thanksgiving down South.   Within PC, we have regional groups called VAC groups (I forgot the acronym), whose job is to setup meetings and parties to support volunteers that are in sites close to someone in a city.   The VAC group that is located on the Southern border of Paraguay, in the semi-large city of Encarnicion, organized the annual Thanksgiving Party this year.   It was probably the most Americanized feeling I have had since being down here.  Almost all the volunteers, from all parts of the country, came down to eat turkey, drink beer, and play touch football.   The experience was fun, relaxing, and especially needed for most volunteers, especially the volunteers serving almost two years.  I got to meet many new volunteers, and actually spend time with the Senior staff and get to know each one of them on a more personal level.   Also, I got to see most of my friends from training, most of which I had not seen during the last three months.  It seems as though everyone is doing good, but we are all living very different experiences.   I actually took the time to read two of my other good friends blogs, and it seemed as though we were living in different countries.  I guess that is what makes the PC so beautiful, everyone has their own unique experience.   I also realized how bad my English is getting (it probably shows in my letters, also), but I felt as though my vocabulary has shrunk down to a 5 year old level.   During the Thanksgiving party, we had talent shows, in which most volunteers have mastered the art of playing the guitar (as you can see we have a lot of free time) and there were many skits bashing Paraguay, but in a fun loving way.   All in all Thanksgiving weekend was a lot of fun, and a reassuring weekend that the next two years will be long, but fun. 

After Thanksgiving, my group that I trained with, had a reconnect training week back in our old host sites.  I'm not sure if you all remembered, but during training I lived with a family of thirteen in a tiny house.  It was nice coming back to see them all, and once again I was back to "rock star" status.   My host family was doing quite well, actually they had received a lot of money from a politician and were remodeling their front yard and buying new hoses and shading materials for their fields.   The whole week was filled with language and technical classes, but it was nice to see everyone and just reflect on what was going on at site.  I feel as though I am more active than most people at my site, and definitely more settled in than my counterparts.  It was disappointing to see that some people had returned after three months at site and the language was still very hard for them, thus not allowing them to start working, I guess my year in Spain is really starting to show its benefits.  The only thing that I really got out of training that I want to bring back to my site is the idea of making a movie and showing people what's going on in my area and how it can work to help show people around the world about Third World Development.   I plan on making this on my digital camera, so it won't be Benny's quality, but I think it can be a fun project for people in my site and myself to try.

Yesterday we finished training, and I decided to go to Asuncion for the day before returning to site to see Tamar and run in the first NIKE 10 Km race in Paraguay.  I posted some of the photos on my photo page and clocked in at 50:30 seconds… pretty good for a person with a pinched nerve, and not training much.   Although today I feel pretty crappy. (It turns out Brad and many other PC workers have an intestinal bug and some of them are very sick - not Brad)  Tomorrow I will head back to site, its been almost 12 days and I really miss my community.  I have a lot of projects in the works, that I am curious to see if they continued while I was gone, and have some new projects to bring to the table. As I wrote to you all last blog about some of my economic ideas, I would love to hear back on what you all think, and if you want me to resend the email just email myself(Bradley.Lazard@gmail.com) or my mom (LslLaz@aol.com).  I hope all is good back in the States, and please keep in touch.   

Love, Brad